


Versions of the same mask

by nigoi



Category: Inazuma Eleven GO
Genre: Detective Work, Inazuma Secret Soccer Exchange, Love Confessions, M/M, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:07:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28285980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nigoi/pseuds/nigoi
Summary: Hayato just wanted a quiet evening, damn it, but that annoying detective had to come and interrupt him.
Relationships: Matatagi Hayato/Minaho Kazuto
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	Versions of the same mask

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bitway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bitway/gifts).



> hi! thanks for opening this fic! it's my give for bitway for the secret soccer exchange! i hope all my readers enjoy, but especially you!
> 
> happy holidays!!

Hayato just wanted to have a quiet evening, away from all responsibilities. 

It’s not everyday he gets to have that, nor every week, nor every month. If he’s lucky, it’ll be once a year, but these past few ones…. They haven’t been good for his stress levels, enough said. So now that, thanks to joining that stupid international football tournament, he had a good chunk of money, he decided to spend it on some alone time (after buying a nice present for his brothers, of course, because they’ll always come first). 

He really needed it, after all the stress dealing with so many cheerful people (well… just the one) and suspicious stares, all while maintaining a polite façade. Just the wallet incident (fucking Manabe, he had it in his pocket all this time---) was enough to make his head start hurting from tension. 

Of course, his alone time soon goes to shit. Then again, when do the things he likes and/or wants to do go well? Never, that is.

He shouldn’t be surprised, but somehow, he is, every damn time.

“Ohohohoho?” an annoying, familiar voice comes from behind him. Hayato freezes, teacup lifted on the way to his mouth. “Matatagi-san, is that you?”

(Yes, teacup. He likes tea.

...Leave him alone, okay?)

Hayato takes a deep breath through his nose, gently puts the teacup on the table, and turns around, smiling the fakest smile he’s smiled in a long time. And that’s saying a lot --- he smiles falsely practically every day, after all.

“Hello, Minaho-kun!” he says, brightly. Hopefully, if he manages the conversation right, it won’t take too long. 

Minaho brings owlish eyes at him, a small smile unflinching on his face. The only moment Hayato has seen him without that smile is when he’s thinking, and that’s even more unsettling. The fucker is way too smart for his own good, and now that brain is focused on Hayato and his awkwardly slapped-on façade. Great.

“Hello,” Minaho returns easily, taking - oh my god no - the seat next to him. In his own fucking table. Shit, shit, shit. “Good to see you here. I didn’t know you liked tea.”

_ You don’t know anything about me _ , Hayato’s mind retorts, but he clamps it down. He has a feeling Minaho knows way more than he should --- about everything, but especially about him --- and he doesn’t want the suspicion confirmed. 

“I do! Sometimes,” he answers, voice disgustingly cheerful. Ugh, why did he choose this façade again? Oh yes, to fit in and not have any unnecessary trouble. Again: ugh. “Tea is great.” Even if it’s supremely expensive and he can only afford it once in a millenium.

“It is,” Minaho agrees, and flags down a waiter to ask for some chamomilla. Matatagi sinks lower on his chest and muffles a sigh with a sip from his own tea. This isn’t going to be over soon, huh...? “I’m a regular here for a reason, after all. But despite that, this is the first time I see you here. Newcomer?”

_ No _ , he snaps mentally.  _ Not everyone is rich enough to come to a damn teashop often. How loaded are you? Give me some of that, bastard. And get out from my damn table.  _

Physically, he shrugs. “Kinda. ‘It’s been a long time since I’ve come here, is all.”

Just then, the waiter arrives with Minaho’s fucking chamomilla, and Hayato kisses goodbyes all the chances he had at spening afternoon alone. He’s going to burst an important vein from stress and it’ll all be this asshole’s fault, mark his words. 

“Hm.” Minaho brings his tea to his lips, but his big eyes don’t leave Hayato. He pretends not to notice, even when the stare is so strong that it’s practically boring holes in his head. Finally, just when Hayato is about to damn all his social inclusion and tell him to fuck himself, Minaho speaks, “Is it because you’re poor?”

Hayato’s eyebrow twitches violently. Desperately grasping his lingering decency to stop himself from throwing down in a tea shop, he downs the last of his tea and slams the porcelain down onto the table (not hard enough to dent it, of course; he doesn’t have that much money). 

Then, forcing a grin into his face --- that probably looks like a grimace ---, he says, “You don’t ask people those things!” The tone is deliberately flustered and light, but he’s totally serious. Really, who taught this fucker social manners? He probably doesn’t have friends, if he goes through life asking questions like this.

(Not that Hayato is one to speak, but shut up. We’re not talking about his problems.) 

Minaho sips his tea primly, as if he weren’t obscenely breaching social code. He’s not blinking. “But is that it?”

“It’s  _ none _ of your business,” he snaps, and reaches for his cup to hide his face while he gets it under control. He lowers it when he sips empty air, just to scowl at Minaho’s smirk. Goodbye, social graces. You won’t be missed. “What’s your problem? Get out of my sight.”

“So you’re not bothering to lie anymore,” Minaho states. He hates it when Minaho states, because that means this is a conclusion, and if this is a conclusion, it means he has been experimenting with this. And if he has been experimenting with his fucking personality, Hayato is going to murder him.

He has to start outlining the deed, but first, he’s going to blur the results of this  _ experiment _ as much as he can. And be as annoying as possible while doing it.

Blinking innocently, he says, “Who was lying? I certainly wasn’t.” Asshole. Why is it that everywhere he goes there is one? He’s never done anything really wrong, aside from breaking some guy’s nose and cheating in that exam and socially manipulating his class to bully some bastard who insulted his brothers and…

Okay, he’s done  _ some _ wrong things. But not enough to justify the disgrace that is meeting Minaho fucking Kazuto. 

“You were,” Minaho answers calmly. Why the fuck is he calm? This is not a calm conversation. Hayato is certainly not calm. “You lie a lot. Why?”

“Not your business,” he says. “And I don’t lie.”

“Sure,” Minaho agrees easily. “So if you hypothetically lied, why would it be?”

“I wouldn’t hypothetically lie either. I’m a saint.”

Minaho pouts, and it brings a smirk to Hayato’s face. Ah, this is so satisfying. 

“Come  _ on _ ,” he insists, and flags the waiter for another cup --- one for him and one for Hayato. Somehow, it’s the flavour Hayato was drinking before, even if, when he’d asked for it, he was enjoying those blessed and sadly few moments of solitude. 

...Or was he?

Hayato narrows his eyes. “How long have you been stalking me?”

Minaho lights up again, and that’s how Hayato knows he’s fallen into a trap. Probably one sprung on him by accident, but a trap nonetheless. And he might have known this guy only for a month and a half but he knows, from watching him train and from watching him play in real matches, that his traps are not to be underestimated. This fucker is far too clever. 

Ugh, why couldn’t Matsukaze be here instead of him? Even if his exaggerated and probably fake cheerfulness is annoying, it’s way better than having those scarily perceptive eyes turned solely on him.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Minaho says, wagging a finger. Hayato gets the weird feeling of wanting to bite it off. “A question for a question, dear Matatagi-kun!”

Hayato scrunches his nose. Should he really agree to that, when both questions pertain to him directly? It’s not fair, but of course, no one here said it was. Minaho is probably one of those people who takes unfairness and aims it at people he doesn’t like, kinda like Hayato himself. He can respect that, if grudgingly. 

“Alright,” he says, because Minaho is going to dangle his answer in front of him unless he agrees. “What was the question again?”

Minaho’s smirk is smug. “Why do you lie so much? It’s not that you act like a bad person --- and I don’t think you are --- but if people stare at you a second too much, you come across as one. Why bother with an act you clearly don’t want to maintain? No matter how much I think about it, I can’t seem to figure it out. Is your real personality really that bad? I don’t think you’d have---”

Hayato lifts his palm. “I thought _ I _ had to answer.”

“Oh, yes.” Minaho smiles sheepishly. “My bad. Answer the question, please.”

...He has just shot himself in the foot. He would have preferred to keep listening to Minaho’s weirdly adorable rant than answer a question truthfully. Well, he never promised to be truthful, but honestly, he would feel kind of bad if he lied now. Just kinda. He's not that good a person to let guilt consume him, but sometimes nagging is worse. And this is supposed to be his alone time, damn it! There should be zero nagging!

“‘tsa bit complicated,” he says, a half-assed last attempt to get out of answering. Of course it won’t work, not with someone as weird and persistent as Minaho, but he has to make the attempt or he would feel bad.

“Try me.” There it is. Sigh.

“You know… people aren’t that reliable.” He grimaces, thinking about the toy truck incident. Looking back, it wasn’t that tragic, but still marked little old him. “So if you are, you’ll only get screwed over. And to be unreliable first, you have to lie a lot. Besides, it’s easier to live if you don't cause any unneeded problems, and you do that by fitting in: being polite but not too much, generous but not too much… Get my gist?”

Hayato stares at the grandfather clock hanging in the far corner of the room. This is the first time he has been honest in… ages. Not even when he’s with his brothers can he be completely truthful, because he needs to be strong for them, way stronger than he really is.

He doesn’t like it. Telling lies is so much safer.

“Uh-huh,” Minaho says simply, hand rubbing his chin in a poor mimicry of a Sherlock Holmes stereotype. Then, he lights up, eyes turning into little half moons who catch Hayato’s attention and don’t let go. “That’s enlightening! Now, your question?”

“”What?” he says absently, still caught on how… strangely good Minaho’s eyes are when he smiles. He’s broken out of his stupor by the waiter gently putting their teacups on the table. The man, some moustached fifty-something-year-old, is smiling at them the same way someone smiles at a puppy sleeping on top of them. Hayato frowns; he’s not  _ cute _ \---

Minaho clears his throat, dragging once again Hayato’s eyes to him. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the waiter winking at him before leaving. “Your question.”

“Oh, yeah… that.” What was it again? Ah, who cares, he’ll make up another. He wants something that will hurt Minaho to answer the same way his question has discomforted Hayato. “Why?”

Minaho blinks owlishly. “Why?”

“Yeah. Why do you care so much about what I do? I don’t see you stalking the other members of Inazuma Japan.”

“If you saw me, that would mean you would be stalking too,” Minaho retorts, smirking. Apparently, he thinks he’s clever (which he is, but like hell he’s going to admit it outloud). Hayato glares, and he shakes his head, as if disappointed that they don’t share the same sense of humour. “But you’re right, I don’t stalk them. I don’t stalk  _ you _ either---”

Hayato scoffs. “Yeah, right.”

“---but I get what you mean,” he continues, as if Hayato hadn’t spoken. Asshole. “And the answer… Hm.” The Sherlock Holmes hand makes a returning appearance. “I’ve never thought about it. Let me think.”

Minaho’s eyes drift off, deep in thought, while Hayato’s mind is too busy reeling. Minaho? Not having thought about something? He didn’t think that was possible! What the hell. He’s broken the world, he has to, because that’s not possible otherwise.

To calm down, he sips on his tea, still smoking hot despite having been left alone for like ten minutes. He relaxes instantly. Ah, the wonders of tea. He wishes he had more money, if only to come here as often as the asshole next to him apparently does. 

At the same time he’s drinking, Minaho punches his open palm, an awed smile on his face. “I’ve figured out why I’m quote-unquote stalking you,” he says. “I have a crush on you!”

Hayato chokes on his tea, spitting it all out in dying coughs over the table. The only reason the cup hasn’t broken is because he’s mindful enough of money to gather his remaining mental capabilities to stop him from rolling off the table, because god knows his brain is busy thinking, in flashing signs of neon,  _ WHAT THE FUCK. _

All caps.

He spends a good two minutes coughing his soul out, and when he finishes almost dying, he says there, leaning over the table, and glares up at Minaho. “You did that on purpose, didn’t you,” he states, doesn’t ask, because after living with two little shits for brothers, he knows for a fact when someone is being one.

Minaho smiles, eyes closed, and raises his hands, the picture of innocence. Hah! As if Hayato would fall by the oldest trick in the book. “Maybe.”

Hayato’s eyebrow twitches, and this time he doesn’t try to stop it. “You’re an asshole.”

And Minaho - Minaho (oh my god he can’t believe he has to describe this) Minaho lightly punches his head, and sticks out his tongue, winking. Then, he… he… he says, “Tee-hee!” in a falsetto voice, and Hayato can feel the last of his soul withering away.

“Oh my god,” he breathes. “You can’t be real. You can’t have done that right now. I have to be seeing things. Please tell me I’m seeing things.”

“I’m afraid I don’t lie,” Minaho says, in a tone of voice way more serious than the situation grants. Seriously, he has just---

Wait a fucking minute. “That means the crush thing wasn’t a lie?” Hayato screeches - psht, nah, he doesn’t screech. He inquires. Calmly.

Minaho shakes his head, that smile still frozen on his face. On second look, maybe it’s too still, too controlled, to be real. ...It can’t be, it  _ can’t _ be, but the thought still crosses Hayato’s mind.

_ Is he nervous? _

Unreal.

But… the proof is in front of him, in the tightness of Minaho’s shoulders and the slightly anxious slant of his mouth. It’s unbelievable, but true: Minaho Kazuya is a normal human (shock) and, as suck, he has normal human feelings. Like antsiness about having just confessed to your crush.

Which, in this case… is Hayato.

The realisation turns his blood into ice-cold water.  _ Oh my god. I have to answer him. What do I  _ say _?! _

“Er…” He pauses. Refusing doesn’t feel right, for some reason, but neither does saying yes. He doesn’t know this kid at all, and besides, even if he’s deduced he’s not kidding, how does Hayato know that this feeling isn’t fleeting? No, it’s too dangerous to agree. “I don’t know what to say.”

Minaho sighs through his nose. “Don’t say anything, then,” he says, smiling slightly at him. The gesture is not completely relaxed, but it is less tense than before. “I know what you mean without any words --- I’m a detective, after all.”

Hayato raises an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? And what was it with that question earlier?” He scoffs. “You totally knew that.”

Minaho purses his lips. “That,” he announces, raising his chin loftily, “was different.”

“Totally,” he drawls, and then isn’t able to hold back a sharp grin. Maybe he will accept Minaho’s proposition, maybe he won’t, but there is something clear: from now on, things are going to get  _ very  _ interesting. 

Hayato had wanted a quiet evening, but maybe this isn’t that bad.


End file.
